No Idea

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I once weighed 165 pounds. But, that was 20 years ago when I was a lanky, active athlete playing soccer and basketball in high school. Since then I have become less active all while keeping my bad eating habits: lots of Fast Food and not a lot of fruits and vegetables.

I reached my heaviest weight of 275 pounds in April of 2014. I reached my lowest weight of 215 pounds in February of 2017.

I am now sitting pretty at 260 pounds.

This is not good. According to the CDC BMI Calculator I should be between 136 to 184 pounds.

Now, I highly doubt that I will ever truly be able to get back to my high school weight; even if I drastically changed my diet and exercise. But, I can work to loss weight and get in better change by changing my diet and the amount of exercise I get. One of the ways I can do that is to follow the new Canada guidelines that are detailed in the photo below. Drastically increase the amount of fruits and vegetables I eat, while drastically decreasing the amount of fast food I eat. I also need to get waaaaaaaay more exercise than I do now. Even though my Fitbit tells me that I get 20k steps in during work, I need to do actual exercise and not just rely on walking around a warehouse for "exercise".

The question is: How do I get these changes to stick?

I have tried to do this before, see that weight drop from 2014-2017? That was a lot of work and I have let it go out of laziness. I need to do better. I want to do better. I would love to be able to run around a soccer field again without falling down after 5 minutes.

But, I am lazy. Just look at the publish date below - Jan 2019 - and I'm just now getting around to saying, "Yeah, I should probably to something different".

Here's to starting to make some changes.

So, let's go do this.

Jan 22, 2019

Canada’s new Food Guide is out! Looks to be much better and more in line with current nutritional science. I am sure the meat, dairy and egg industries are upset #goplantbased

It's December. The year is almost over. Instead of looking back at 2018 and seeing how much I wanted to do that I didn't do; I am using this month to look forward to 2019. To begin thinking about what I want to accomplish. To start putting some ideas down. To start brain storming Goals. To start the process of turning over a new leaf. To begin.

I started a note in my notebook this morning:

I Want To ... read more write more clean more exercise more
* cook more

There is definitely a theme going on as I start to look toward 2019. I want to do more which ultimately I have to do less. I have to reduce somethings in order to increase others. Time is a Zero Sum game.

Which means that I will need to start to focus on something that gives me issues all the time: Time Management.

I will have to start planning and working towards reaching this vague "more" that I want to do.

Now, I just have to find some time to think about when I will be able to do all of this more.

Sooner or later, all motivation is self motivation. And the challenge and opportunity is in finding the external forces that will soon become internal ones.

I struggle with motivation. A lot.

I call it procrastination. In reality it is a lack of motivation. Goals that I want to work on go unnoticed. Tasks I want to complete keep getting pushed back. It is not procrastination if it is a daily habit. It is a lack of motivation.

If all motivation is self motivation then how do I find my self motivation?

While not my heaviest (275 lbs back in 2015) it is 25 lbs more than my lightest (225 lbs last year). I let my self go. I let myself slide back into old habits. Eating Fast Food more than I should (which is hardly ever). Not eating at regular times. Snacking endlessly before heading to bed.

There are a multitude of things that I can do to get my weight back under control and start to lose the pounds that I have gained. I need to refocus my efforts and put in the work to start losing weight again.

No more Fast Food

More Fruits and Vegetables

More Home Cooked Meals

Less Snacking

Reduce Sweets (part of #4)

With these 5 steps I think I will have a solid base to start losing weight. Of course, the next step after getting these steps set as habits (or maybe not next steps but, same time steps) is to start exercising on a regular basis.

According to my FitBit data, I don't have a problem reaching my 15,000 step goal on the days I work. This isn't a surprise because I work in a warehouse on my feet for 8-12 hr shits so, I'm going to move a lot.

But, the fact that I am so active during the work week and still putting on the pounds tells me I need to do more. I need to do more.

I am not happy with my habits.

I will not bore you with everything that I want to change. Just know that I am tired of doing things the way I do things because the way I do things is not helping me grow as a person. I am tired of feeling like I'm stuck being a 20-something in a 30-something life. It's not where I want to be mentally.

I need to take some time and focus on what I want to do and ponder what habits I have that need to be changed so that I can get to where I think I want to be.

Inspired by this post at Lamebook, I took a minute to focus on how I was feeling this morning.

I find it difficult to explain but, I will try:

It feels like you are stuck fast in something and there is something pressing your entire body down. A physical push to get you to go under whatever you are stuck in with no way to get out. There is no path that you can see to get out but, you know you need to do something to get out so there is just the general feeling of stuckness.

Yeah, that doesn't sound very good and it is only a partial description.

I've never been stuck in quick sand like the old cartoons but, I imagine Heavy Head feels like that. You're moving along nicely in your life journey and then Bam! out of nowhere you find yourself stuck in a pit of quick sand.

You don't actually fall all the way over your head, just up to your torso. Enough to look around and know that you're stuck in some shit and know that you need to get unstuck so you can keep going on. But, there's no rope, or branch, or person standing by to help pull you out. Well, there is someone there to help pull you out but, you're too fucking stubborn to ask for help so when they ask if you need help you tell them your fine.

So, you're sitting there in a pit of quicksand not asking for help and telling people you're good and you don't need help even though you do need help because you're just feeling stuck and you can't get going because you're, you know, stuck.

Then along comes some random asshole, and steps on your shoulders to get past that pit of quicksand you're in and instead of just walking on by and not noticing that they're walking on you, they decide to just stop and stand there for a bit. This random asshole just sits there hanging out and not doing anything, not talking to you, not talking to people around you who are asking if you need help, just hanging out like there's nothing better going on anywhere else.

And this random asshole doesn't just hang out for a bit and moves on never to be seen again. No, that would be easy to deal with. This random asshole steps off every once in a while to give you the idea that you're getting unstuck and moving past this stupid pit of quicksand. You think, I've got this. I'm almost out. I'm almost there. I can get out and get unstuck and move on and keep going on this journey I'm going on. You feel confident you'll be able to get shit done and get moving.

And that's when this random ass asshole walks back over you and just fucking stands there, oblivious to what you're going through and not giving a shit that they're fucking up your day/week/month/year.

Heavy Head is just that random ass feeling of being stuck amplified with the idea of physical pressure pushing you down.

Heavy Head is my term for my mind fucking with me and telling me that I'm not good enough to do what I want to do and I shouldn't try to reach any goals that I might have set. It's my name for my brain being a dick to me. Heavy Head is a dick. And I'm still trying to figure out how I can move past that stupid shit.

I'm at a loss most of the time for why I do some of the things that I do. The power of habit means that I routinely do some things that I want to not do. I want to work on not doing these things but, like most things, I find it hard to actually do (or rather, not do) these things.

Here's a good example:
Every morning I get up and make coffee, open my Chromebook, and start scrolling through RSS feeds.

Why? Because that's what I do.

I think it has to do with wanting to do something in the morning that will lead to something in the early afternoon before work but, it never does. It is just a habit that I have fallen into and find it hard to break out of. Extremely hard.

Another example:
I know, really know that I need to prepare and plan my morning the night before or else, I'll end up on the couch with my coffee and reading RSS feeds for hours. But, when I come home from work, without fail (even if I tell myself that I won't do it this time) I sit in my chair and turn on the TV and watch something for a couple of hours. All while ignoring preparing or thinking about the next day.

Why? Because that's what I do.

How do I break these cycles of doing things that I know I want to change but, have not found a way to stop doing them?

That is what I struggle with. There are more than these two examples but, I won't go into all of them because, well, they're personal.

I know what I need to do to break these habits. I just don't know how to break these habits.

It starts out small and it builds. It starts out by just doing it. Not by thinking about it or wishing that I could find that one magic trick to make my habits change but, by small continuous action, every single day. By not beating myself up for not doing it one day but, by trying again the next day.

By Just Doing It.

But, sometimes that is easier said than done. When you have years and years of habit built up, it is hard to break that habit by just doing something else. At least it is for me.

I guess I just need to start doing what I want to do and quit complaining about not doing what I want to do.

It feels like there isn't enough time in the week to do what I want and I haven't learned how to prioritize what I want so, all I do now is meander around the internet and drink coffee before I have to work in the evenings.

I turned 37 on Tuesday. I need a pick me up. I've been in a funk and focusing on a dumb number for the last couple of days. So,, when I need an easy pick me up, where do I turn to? My weight loss.

It seems like an unlikely place for me to find good news but, when I looked this morning at my journey I was pleased with what I saw. That first red arrow son the left is when I started tracking my weight in August of 2010 at 256 pounds. The heaviest I got is the red arrow in the middle when I was 274 pounds in April of 2014. And finally on the right I am 221 pounds. A loss of 53 pounds over six years.

That's good news. Now I have a new goal. I want to be 200 pounds January 1st. That's 21 pounds in 3 months. I will not get discouraged if I don't make it. It's just something that I'm shooting for, informally. I will work on eating fresh, home cooked meals with more fruits and vegetables until the end of the year. I will try to eat fast food as little as possible. I want to join a gym so that I can do some weight lifting to build more muscle but, that is not high on the list of things I need to do as the holidays come.

I'll leave this as motivation for myself.

Me in 2014:

Me in 2016:

A little less fat. A little older. Maybe wiser, maybe not. But, definitely a work in progress.